(strictly techie today, so feel free to skip this post)

A bazillion years ago, I added a widget at the bottom of my posts to make it easy for people to share things.  I picked AddThis.com's widget because you could do ANYTHING (almost) with it ... add to bookmarks, email it, facebook it, stumble it, etc.  Looking at the stats on AddThis, I see that almost no one has used it.

Recently, I noticed that my traffic from Pinterest is rising steadily.  I figured I'd make it even easier for people to pin my posts.  When I looked into adding a Pinterest button, I discovered that it's not as easy as all the other social media buttons because it requires an image to be associated with the button.  Makes sense, but it's not something I could just pop onto the page.

Monday night I made some database changes, admin changes, and display changes to add Pin It buttons to every post.  Basically, I have a new field to fill in when I save a post ... the link to the image I want to use for the Pin It button.  If you click the button for most of my posts, the associated image is my logo, but for the most recent posts, and some of the older popular posts, I've put in an appropriate image from that specific blog post for the Pin It button.  Woo hoo!

It was so much fun to add that button, that I decided to upgrade my AddThis widget.  I got rid of everything except the Facebook Like button ... because it was the only one with a count next to it.  Then I found the code for the Tweet This button with a count next to it and added that one, too.

The reason I didn't use the AddThis tweet button with the count is because when you click the AddThis tweet button, it says "via @AddThis" at the end of the tweet text.  If I created the button programatically myself, I could have it say "via @futuregirlcraft" instead.  Of course, the tweeter can change the text that gets tweeted, but I didn't like AddThis inserting itself into my reader's experience.

I have no idea how the Facebook Like button works because I don't have a Facebook account.  If you ever use it and it seems goofy, let me know.

I like having the counts because it gives me instant feedback about how people feel about my post.  Not everyone comments because it takes time, etc, but it's super easy to click the Like/Tweet/Pin It buttons.  It's also probably good that you (my readers) aren't presented with a block of 20 little icons to choose from; you can choose to do one of three things easily.

I will go back through my old posts and update them to use an appropriate image for the Pin It button, starting with the posts that are linked to most often, like the blanket stitch post (which I've already changed).  I was thrilled to see that post already has 90 pins!

The other upside is that the purple stripe sweater post from Tuesday already has 8 pins.  I think it is due to the new Pin It button, which is great!  I love that people want to share something I've posted. :)

One little rant ... wtf is up with Pinterest making their share button taller than EVERYONE else's button?  The whole rest of the world is playing nice and making their buttons the same damn height.  I found the css that needed to change and I was all set to override their stylesheet (like I did with the twitter feed in the left sidebar) to make the button the standard height BUT they used IDs in an effing iFrame ... and at that point I'd already been programming for an hour past my bedtime, so I just gave up (I'm not even sure if it's possible to affect the styles in an page shown in an iFrame ...). But woe to you, Pinterest, if I ever *do* have the free time to look into this, because I'm going to cut your button down to size, you bunch of Egomaniacs.

Resources:
Tweet button details
Pin It button for websites details
AddThis.com details

Even with the stripes, this is a very quick knit on 5.0 mm needles.  I sped through the body and did everything according to the pattern ...

... until ... haha, you knew there was an until, right?  

I didn't make the sweater as long as the pattern suggested because I like my tops to hit at the widest part of my hips.  I find that it's a great way to break up the bulk down there and having the shirt flare out accentuates my waist.  It's probably against the rules, just like horizontal stripes, but that doesn't bother me.

(OMG, see how big that armhole looks?  I'm trying to ignore how freaky big that hole is.  Just keep knitting.  Just keep knitting.)

The pattern suggested that you go down a needle size for the bottom ribbing.  I thought that would pull in too much and make the cardigan balloon-ish.  So I did two test swatches.

My suspicion was correct.  4.0 mm needles made the ribbing way too tight.  Both of the swatches are exactly the same number of stitches across and down.  The smaller needles also make a shorter row.

I was even tempted to go up a size to do the ribbing so it wouldn't pull at all.  But the sweater is cotton, so I figure it'll stretch a little and loosen up. We'll see.

A super-happy consequence of swatching was that I noticed the problem with starting 2x2 ribbing in a new color.  It reminded me of a striped ribbing trick I learned from Color Knitting The Easy Way:



The trick is, if you're knitting stripes and ribbing at the same time, to knit every stitch the first row, then go back to the ribbing on subsequent rows.  Ta da!  No dashes mucking up your stripey stripes.

Wednesday, January 23th from 5:00-7:00 at ING Cafe at 101 Post Street, San Francisco (at Kearny).  Everyone welcome!  Bring a project and hang out with us.

I hope to see you there!

Embroidering the label for Perrin's Starling Handbag was a perfect craft night project.  That means I can do it *and* listen/talk at the same time.  I tried working on the blue knit lace scarf at craft night once and I ended up having to take out all three hours of work.  Gah!

I have an Embroidery On Felt Tutorial if you're wondering how I make my labels.  I forgot my trick of making sure the grain of the stabilizer goes top to bottom.  That makes it easier to remove since most of the letters have vertical bits.  Oh, well.

If you live in the USA, please take a moment to learn about SOPA/PIPA if you aren't already familiar with it.  

Here is analysis from Google , Wikipedia, and the EFF.  And you can alway do your own Google search to see what other people are saying.

Then please contact your elected officials to let them know what you think. Wikipedia has made it easy.  Just go to Wikipedia and enter your zip code.  They'll tell you who to contact to voice your opinion.  

I did.

At the beginning of December I decided to start a couple of sweaters.  Out of the blue, I suddenly HAD to cast on for both of them.  One is slumbering now, but I'm still in the thick of the other, so I'm going to start blogging about it - Panoply of Purple Stripes using Stefanie Japel's knitting pattern Shapely Boyfriend.

What drew me to this pattern is:

• Top down!!!  So you can try it on as you go.
• V-Neck.  I'm usually warm, so having a v-neck helps me maintain a "just warm enough" temperature in the winter.
• Free.  So I could take a look at the pattern instructions and make sure I could handle it before starting.

Looking in my stash, I noticed the three purples I got in my yarn extravaganza Knit Picks order and thought I'd combine two of my favorite clothing design elements: purple and stripes.

When I mentioned I was making a striped sweater from three different purples to a co-worker, he said, "Do you think you can pull it off?" Ha! Of course I can!  Although without seeing the three purples, I'm sure what someone would imagine is nutso.  I think the mix I have is perfectly balanced.

The next step was to figure out what stripe pattern to use.  I used Open Office Calc to test out stripe patterns because it had bunches of colors to pick from (as opposed to my ancient Excel which had 12 or something).  

I looked at the knitting pattern and figured out how many rows were going to be in the back of the sweater.  I made the OpenOffice file that many lines tall so I could get an idea of how each stripe pattern would actually look.

Here are the stripe patterns I made in order.

1. Totally random.

2. Totally ordered.

3. Each color blends into the next.

4. Same as before with less overlapping.

5. Thick dark stripes interspersed with thin medium and light stripes.

6. Kaleidoscopic pattern.

7. Now that I see this one, it looks like I made a copy/paste error in the rows because I pattern I *expect* to see here is not the one I see.

8. Orderly and neat.

9. Thick light stripes interspersed with thin medium and dark stripes.

10. Expanded version of above.

11. Medium stripes with alternating sets of light and dark stripes.

12. Light stripes with alternating sets of medium and dark stripes.

13. Dark stripes with alternating sets of light and medium stripes.

14. Overlapping sets of 3 stripes.

At this point I was feeling a little seasick from staring at stripes.  I looked back through my sets and picked some of my favorites: 3, 4, 6, 8, 11, and 14.  I asked Andrew what he liked and after hearing what he thought, ended up picking 6, the kaleidoscopic one.

I wanted to use about the same amount of each color, so I adjusted the thick medium-purple stripes to be only two stripes thick, instead of 3 stripes thick.

I can't remember, but I'm pretty sure I did a stripe swatch to make sure I liked it.  Of course I did, right?  In what world do I not swatch every tiny thing?

Now that I'm done with the Fennec Fox, I've picked my new featured craft project, Perrin's Starling Handbag.

I got to know Perrin through my site.  She wrote a crazy-sweet post about me on her blog Paper Clips and Play Pens.  After just a couple of emails, I could tell she was the kind of direct, open, and passionate person that I get along with perfectly.  I just love Perrin. :)

When I got my annual burr behind my eye about not having a futuregirl logo, I emailed Perrin to see if she was interested in helping me out, since she's a freelance web designer.  She was amazingly enthusiastic.

We exchanged several epic emails talking about my craft blog, my audience, my direction, my hopes for the site ... me me me.  Ha!  How could I *not* love it?  She even sent me sheets of preliminary sketches from her brainstorming sessions.

Our conversations got the gears turning in my head.  Eventually, I was inspired to create my own logo, but I believe I couldn't have done this without first consulting with Perrin.  I'd spent 5 years trying to come up with logo on my own, with no luck.

I wanted to pay her back for all her help.  She'd said something about wanting a Starling Handbag of her own, so, in secret, I crocheted one for her.  And I bought the fabric for the lining.  And tucked it away in my WIP drawer ... for at least a year ... sigh ...

I could have just taken this out of the WIP drawer, frogged it, and put the yarn back in my stash since Perrin didn't know I'd even started it.  It's no fun admitting your shortcomings ... but as my Midwestern up bringing taught me, doing so probably builds character, so I'm sucking it up.  As bad as I feel about letting this token of my appreciation languish, I still want Perrin have a special Starling Handbag made just for her.

As you can imagine, being tucked in a drawer for a year, her Starling had a couple of folds and creases.  I needed to lightly block it.

It just so happens that these cartons of chicken stock are the perfect shape and size to create a blocking form ... bonus that they are waterproof, too!

I inverted the Starling over the cartons and lightly sprayed it with a water squirter.  There was a little smoothing and pulling involved to work out the wrinkles.

In this photo you can see the nice crisp edge around the bottom of my Starling thanks to the innovation of Chicken Betty.  She came up with the idea of crocheting in the interior-loops-only when you transition from the bottom of the bag to the sides.  Brilliant!

After drying overnight, good as new!

This is the gorgeous fabric I bought for the lining.  I love those flowers!  I recently came across a great felt flower tutorial that I hope will work to make the outside embellishments for the bag.  Oh!  I'm looking forward to working on this handbag!

Wednesday, January 11th from 5:00-7:00 at ING Cafe at 101 Post Street, San Francisco (at Kearny).  Everyone welcome!  Bring a project and hang out with us.

I hope to see you there!

I didn't post over Christmas because I holed up in my apartment and knitted my little heart out.  I knew from years past that my blog traffic dips around the holidays so I gave myself a little time off. :)  The plan was to write a couple amazing posts during the New Year's Eve 3-day weekend.  Ha!  I've been sick since 12/29, so that didn't happen.

I keep telling myself I'm feeling better and then I sneeze out a face-full of snot and fill my little trashcan with tissues blowing my nose.  Boo hoo, poor me. :)

Here's a topic that lightens my sickly burden, though, my new swift and ball winder.  Ahhhh.  I had a gigantic hank of lace weight yarn to wind into a ball, thanks to Linda Permann, and I enjoyed every tiny second of the winding.

Imagine me sitting there turning the crank of my ball winder with bright shining eyes and the sparkliest of smiles ...



This is not a commercial/sponsor post, but you probably are wondering ... it's the KnitPicks Ball Winder and the Amish-Designed Swift.  I picked the ball winder because you can mount it or snap on the handle and hold it while you wind your yarn ball.  I picked the Amish-Designed swift because you can take it apart when you're not using it and store it away.  It easily slips together when you want to use it again.  They both worked wonderfully.

Whew!  I've tired myself out.  Here are a bunch of photos I took of the process.  Enjoy!  And send me some healthy juju.  I've got some crafting to do! :)

Wednesday, December 28th from 5:15-8:00 at Samovar at Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco.  Everyone welcome!  Bring a project and hang out with us.

I hope to see you there!